1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a semiconductor device, a method of fabricating the same, a film carrier tape, a circuit board, and an electronic apparatus.
2. Description of Related Art
In the pursuit of microminiaturization of semiconductor devices, a bare chip mounting arrangement is regarded as an ideal form of assembling. However, since quality assurance of a bare chip and the handling thereof are practically difficult, it in assembled in a package in semiconductor device fabrication. As one of package forms meeting multi-terminal requirements, a ball grid array (BGA) type of package has been developed recently. On a substrate of the BGA type package, external terminal bumps are arranged in an area array to permit surface mounting.
A flexible package substrate is used in one kind of BGA type package. In fabrication of such a kind of BGA type package, a tape automated bonding (TAB) technique is practiced since it satisfies a need for mounting a semiconductor chip having arrow-pitch pads and allows a continuous flow of production.
In Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 8-31869, for example, there is disclosed a method of fabricating a BGA type package using a film carrier tape. On the film carrier tape, individual leads are formed for each package, i.e., not all the leads are formed to have conductivity. It is therefore necessary to provide electroplating on individual leads for each package, resulting in a burdensome step in fabrication. Even if all the leads are formed to have conductivity on the film carrier tape, the end face of each lead is exposed after the film carrier tape is punched out, making it necessary to take any special measures for preventing leakage on insulation, degradation of moisture resistance reliability, etc.